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Travel

It’s been a while since the last post. A lot has happened between now and then and I’d like to take this opportunity to share what we’ve been up to. Understandably, after our successful crowdfunding campaign in August we took a “break” in September to take stock of everything that had happened. If you’re not already familiar with the details:

Our first weekend in August took Vera and I to Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, as well as Sam Mitchel’s old ranch in Edwards CO. For that trip we were in the awesome company of Dr. Henry Beker, his colleague Linda Davies, and our good friend Amy Honan from Western States Colorado University. Here’s the post of that trip for deets.

The second weekend was the CMS Fair with Michael Kuo. Post1. Post2. It was also the week we implemented a new protocol for processing mushrooms.

The last weekend of August I went to Red River, NM to visit and mingle with the New Mexico Mycological Society at their annual foray.

In September we started to tackle our specimens gathered from August. We did this by implementing a new protocol that I’ll discuss in a bit more detail in another blog. We also did a few extra forays, but perhaps the most memorable was the filming I did with Ed and Ikuko Lubow for the PBS show Urban Conversion. Whether or not we produced anything worth putting on television we’ll all have to wait until April when the new season comes out. That being said, I think we all had a great time collecting and talking about the importance of fungi.

A form of black truffle (probably Tuber aestivum) thinly sliced with a form of matsutake (probably Tricholoma magnivelare) with pine nuts and drizzled with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Accompanied with a sweet desert wine like a port. I’ll have to get Micheal from Cafe Marie-Jeanne, Chicago, to clarify for me.

October turned into another busy month of mycology and travel. The first weekend of the month I made my annual pilgrimage to Chicago to visit with friends and to take part in the festive trek around Chicago’s many neighborhoods, AKA the Chicago Marathon. One nice visit was to my friend Michael Simmons’ restaurant Cafe Marie-Jeanne. It’s relevant given the fungal inspired charcuterie plate we had there. [SHOUT OUT TO MIKE!]I also was able to make a visit my old home, the Chicago Botanic Garden and sit down with Greg Mueller to chat about project ideas.

After Chicago I headed to Salem Oregon for the North American Mycological Association annual foray. This year was my first as the official Voucher Coordinator. The experience turned out well. Largely thanks to an excellent vouchering crew. The Voucher Committee is lead by Voucher Chair Patrick Leacock, myself, then Wyatt Gasswick, and Bruch Reed. Along for the experience was a great group of student assistants that included Stephen Russel (Purdue University, and North American Mycoflora Project), Christin Swearingen (U. Alaska – Fairbanks), Elise O’Brien (Lane Community College, Eugene OR), Chance Noffsinger (Montana State University), and not least, former CBG alumnus Nik Desai who conveniently resides in Portland.

David Hibbett’s “Big Tree” made an appearance.

Staging area for vouchering collections

With these folks, and the excellent contributions of the NAMA foray participants, we were able to make upwards of 330 collections, with a number of lichen species that had yet to be added to the total. All told we expect there to be over 350 collections – and nearly as many species – during an event that was supposedly held too early in the season. But I guess that’s what the Pacific Northwest is like for mushroom hunting. A “slow” year here would be considered a boon nearly anywhere else on the continent.

Voucher Assistant Elise O’Brien helps a NAMA member recall important voucher information from the foray while other participants diligently fill out their specimen labels.

Now that we’re back, more or less, we’ve been accessioning this year’s collections using new accessioning protocols. I’ve also been courting our volunteers and students to contribute to this blog. Next month I hope to highlight some of the new protocols and perhaps introduce a schedule of topics you’ll be seeing in the future.

With this, I’ll wish you a Happy Thanksgiving chocked full of mushroom infused stuffing and gravy! Cheers…

Like this:

The Telluride Mushroom Festival is a destination for both the grounded, and more ethereal mushroom enthusiast. While it has a history of catering to the latter, one thing that is true about the festival is that everyone in attendance is united by their affection for these organisms.

If you’ve spent any time exploring this website, you may have come across our About page. Telluride is located in the Southwestern portion of Colorado, and the map provided on the above page demonstrates that we have a lot of work to do to better represent the mushroom diversity in this part of the state. This makes the Telluride Mushroom Festival a great opportunity for us, and also a great opportunity to expose the Festival’s community to this project and what we can learn from it.

Along with several other academic mycologists, Andy was invited down to help promote the Colorado Mycoflora Project through the coordination of a voucher program, providing a seminar on the project, and sitting down on a discussion panel on the theme of, “Mycology in the Molecular Biology Era … For Beginners and Citizen Scientists“. Every event was well attended and well received. There seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for the Project, as well as curiosity in the what, why, and how of the approach to studying fungal biodiversity.

Several speakers gave excellent talks about the world of mycological research. Our own Rick Levy gave a great talk on the importance of making scientifically relevant mushroom collections. Jeff Ravage gave a talk on his mycoremediation project. Poor guy had to compete for attention against Paul Stametes who was also giving a lecture at that time, but he got a decent turnout regardless. Cathie Aime gave two talks. The first one captivated the audience with stories of her mushroom adventures in the wilderness of Guyana. The second seminar focused on the fascinating biology of the rust fungi. And perhaps the most spectacular academic lecture I’ve ever witnessed was given by David Hibbett, who for his talk channeled the ghost of Theophrastus, the “father of botany”. In his talk he regaled us with mycology’s origins as an aspect of botany. He also demonstrated that we are all somewhat guilty of “ladder thinking” when we attempt to evaluate and categorize different forms of life. David gave a second seminar that was equally well received, the subject of which fed into a demonstration he gave showing how different phenotypic forms of fungi are distributed through the fungal tree of life.

As for the vouchering program that the Colorado Mycoflora Project intended to implement at Telluride, this remains a work in progress. For one, our (=my) idea of implementing a protocol much like we had at the CMS Fair the week prior, will not really work well in this environment. We’ll likely need to resort to a more traditional format where individuals go out on individual forays and either recruit other festival attendees, sympathetic to our efforts, or provide focused forays with the intent to make collections for the Project. Another issue was how dry Telluride was for the Festival. The ID tent had mostly bare tables. While people were able to make collections on their forays, many of the specimens were in poor shape. It was also challenging to get the necessary collection information from those that dropped off their specimens. This is likely a communication issue that we can do better on, and something we plan to aggressively address for future forays and festivals. Regardless, we were able to return to DBG with well over 60 collections, with the count still climbing.